The Manichean Paranoia Patch

I don’t know what strings Barack’s people had to tug in order to pull this off, but kudos.

I had to share this one because it’s super super special. (And because you always hear about all the men involved in sex scandals and never the women.) The female in question is a 33-year-old teacher for mentally handicapped children. This super special woman decided to have sex with one of her 16 year old students… on numerous separate occasions. How did they find out? She was letting him drive her truck without a license. Did I mention he’s mentally handicapped?

And because I’m not a complete cynic: from the people that brought you the “otters-holding-hands” video comes the kissing pandas story.  These red pandas can’t stop making out!  Apparently they’ve smooched twice a day every day for ten months!  Weird.

I felt like my tuition article was a little bit dry so here’s something for the kids. The title really says it all… My favorite part is when the two pedestrians jump in and start dancing with him.

Wow, it’s been over a month since I posted in this thing. I have been extremely busy month- mostly with school and being Student Government President at my college. Which leads me to my next post. I was quoted in the Dallas Morning News on Tuesday on October 23rd, 2007. They interviewed me on Monday and I had a very enjoyable 20 minute conversation with Holly Hacker, the woman who wrote the article. I actually met Ms. Hacker on a plane coming back from a UTSSAC meeting and she overheard Ana (my VP) and I talking about some school policies and introduced herself. Then, a month later, I received an email from her, randomly, asking me to call her back if I had time to give input on a story she was writing. Very cool.

DMN is the local paper in my area so it was pretty exciting for me. You can read the article here. The article was about tuition increases in Texas and how rapid their increases have been since tuition deregulation. Texas went from being one of the cheapest states for higher education to being the 19th most expensive in only a few decades. You can read the article for more info on the what, but I want to give some of my analysis on the “why.” The following is the text of an article I wrote for one of the campus newspapers, A Modest Proposal, explaining my thoughts about the tuition issue as it relates to our school:

[Read more →]

This one is cute; it reminds me of the jibjab video of the Kerry Bush election.  Enjoy!

OK, I’m a guy and even I think these are awesome.

OK, I don’t normally like Michael Moore but I did enjoy this publicity stunt mocking former Mayor Giuliani. As much as I dislike Giuliani’s aggressive, uncompromising foreign policy, I do think he did a pretty good job cleaning up New York City. Those good deeds aside, I thought this video was hilarious. In it, Mr. Moore opens up a Giuliani-themed sex shop in honor of the Mayor’s 60/40 rule in which sex shops must sell 60% non-sex related items in order to remain in business. 60% of Moore’s merchandise is Giuliani themed, the other 40% is sex-related. The overlaps is where it gets really interesting. Go watch.

This week’s heroes are two high school seniors: David Shepherd and Travis Price. After a male Freshman was taunted for wearing pink on the first day of school this year, these cool kids decided to do something about it. The pair organized a mass effort to get everyone to wear pink on the same day to display a community solidarity against mean-spirited teasing. Apparently, using a mix of word-of-mouth and the Internet, they were able to get approximately half the school to display their intolerance for intolerance. You can read more about it here.  Anyway, good job guys! 

Next week’s hero will be William Seward, but I’ve been trying to finish the book which has inspired my Seward salute before I explain who he is and why he is one of the great, under-recognized American heroes.  

Thanks to Anjie for showing me this one. The concept is pretty straight forward. This French company helps spouses cheat on their significant others by allowing them to purchase alibis and the necessary follow-up documents, phone calls, whatever is necessary for them to pull it off. It’s legal, because they only make up documents from fake companies, not by doctoring real ones.

The company’s creator is a former private eye that got tired of being the anti-fun police, apparently, and wanted to help people get away with mischief for a change. If you can read French, I encourage you to check out their website. Despite myself, I can’t help but think that this is actually a really intriguing idea.  I’m surprised I haven’t heard about something like this before.  What do you think, is this the epitome of denigration or simply another service to society?

Before I forget, today is the official Day of Conception in Ulyanovsk Oblast, a federal subject of Russia.  In honor of its low birthrates, September 12th has been designated a day for couples to get off of work and then… get off in bed, if you’re willing to excuse the horrible sexual pun.  Couples that give birth nine months later, June 12th, will receive “money, cars, refrigerators, and other prizes.”  For those that participate and give birth on that day, a committee of judges evaluates the mother and family based on criteria including respectability and parenting.   More than 600 women signed up for the contest last year, and the birth rate on that day was three times the usual average.

Ulyanovsk Oblast: